Moberly City Council approves upgrade to 911 call center

The Moberly City Council approved the police department’s proposal to purchase new equipment for the emergency call center. Moberly Police Chief Officer Russell Tarr says the upgrade will cost about $190 thousand dollars.

The upgrade to the Moberly call center allowed for newer technologies to be added to the Moberly police force.

Credit Jason Rojas / Flickr

"Upgrade to receive 911 text messaging 911 calls." said Tarr. "It will allow us to receive video, uh, it also has a new feature where if there is a natural disaster or a man-made disaster we can actually take our 911 center and go remote."

The city’s Director of Finance Greg Hodge says the city council approved the request quickly because the old equipment is past its five-year life span. Hodge says the funding for the upgrade came from tariffs paid by landline phone users.

"We hold back a certain percentage of these funds that come in, in order to do these upgrades." said Hodge. "So, we know they’re coming approximately every five, six years so we reserve those funds for that."

Tarr and Hodge say they are unsure of where the future funds to update will come from because landline usage continues to drop.

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The revamped Moberly City Council didn’t wait long to begin making changes to their city.

The council recently approved an ordinance to put close to thirty thousand dollars toward repairs to city hall. The damages to the building occurred when mid-Missouri was hit by large amounts of snow back in February.